


i left you in my mind

by merthurlin



Series: i will always find you in the drift [1]
Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Pacific Rim Fusion, Gen, more characters and pairing as we progress in the series i guess, oh boy this is going to be painful
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-14
Updated: 2016-11-14
Packaged: 2018-08-30 23:26:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,126
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8553841
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/merthurlin/pseuds/merthurlin
Summary: The first time they all drift together isn’t remarkable.





	

**Author's Note:**

> welp this sure is a thing now! i was crying over twitter and tumblr about a pacrim!taz au, and then this happened. this is probably going to be a series of interconnected stories set in this fusion universe, and i have at least three more planned out. pacrim AUs are my weakness, yo
> 
> (title is from "blew my mind" by dresses)

The first time they all drift together isn’t remarkable. Magnus and Taako have already been found to be drift compatible, and so has Magnus and Merle. They didn’t have an amazing connection, but it would do in a pinch – there was an empty jaeger out there, and somebody had to fill it. Killian and Carey were good, they were really good, but they couldn’t carry the fate of the world on their shoulders alone.

It was actually Killian who came up with the idea – a three-way drift. For years she and Killian insisted their jaeger, a behemoth monster with multiple arms and a penchant for flips named N03ll3, was part of their drift – that theirs was a partnership of three, and not two. The Director had Lucas ran multiple tests, but to no avail; if there was something to their belief, it didn’t show up in the scientific data. A three-way drift had never been recorded before, and the Director was nothing if not cautious. She would not risk her best chance for a new piloting team on something that could risk affect their compatibility. Lucas thought a three-way drift could be too much for their brains, and could result in various fun outcomes such as a coma or brain hemorrhage. It was simply too risky.

Coincidently, the day after the Director made her final decision was also the first recorded instance of a double event – from the murky waters of the ocean they rose, two titans brought to life. The titles always came from Agnus, their genius teen handler, and he didn’t disappoint this time as well. Phandolin and Rockseeker are born, and Killian and Carey are dispatched.

It quickly became painfully clear that they are outmatched. They may be the pair holding the highest kill records, but it was still two on one, and the odds weren’t in their favor. If they lose those two and their jaeger, the world was as good as toast – that was clear to everyone. And so the Director ordered Magnus and Merle to suit up.

She was hesitant to send either of them on this mission – for Magnus, the shape of Julia in the drift was still an open wound, and Merle had never been in a real jaeger before. But Taako was just too unpredictable, the connection to him fluctuating and fleeting after Sazed, and she just couldn’t risk that.

As soon as Merle and Magnus began recalibrating, they both knew this wouldn’t work. Magnus’ pigheadedness and Merle’s spaciness were too volatile together, and the balance would never hold. It could, for a while, but then it would tip too much in Magnus’ favor and the entire thing would crumble down. In a short fight it would suffice, but this was a double event, and nothing about it could be short or easy. N03ll3 couldn’t afford to have an unknown variable on the field.

It was actually Lucas who pushed her to make the call. ‘They could refit the jaeger for three people relatively easy, and actually, well, don’t be angry’, he said, and she never could, not with him, ‘But I actually already started to work on it. It was interesting, is all’.

She tried to protest, but knew she had nothing to protest with, no line of sight towards a possible solution that wouldn’t end in disaster. Magnus and Taako were as much a ticking time bomb as Magnus and Merle, and sending an untried pilot like Merle into battle with Taako, of all people, was out of the question. 

(Magnus and Taako had too much baggage, too many rabbits in the drift, too many holes to fall into and never get out. Merle, in comparison, was a clean slate. With two people it would have been impossible, too much imbalance, but maybe with three… Maybe with three).

While Killian and Carey tried to buy them time, facing against the two monsters, Lucas and his team quickly worked on their latest jaeger, a giant machine with no name and no team, a sword in one hand and a cannon blaster in the other. Agnus sometimes joked that it looked like something out of a child’s fantasy, a hulking hero sent to protect them from the monsters under their bed. Killian and Carey would ruffle his hair and tell him that they are the only hero that he would ever need, but personally, the Director couldn’t help but agree – she would feel much better about their chances if this would work out.

Taako was quickly ushered in, for once not wearing any of the bright colors he was so known for but the standard black suit. While Lucas helped attach him to the various machinery around him, the three would-be pilots exchanged somber looks – or rather, that is what would have been appropriate, but Magnus was grinning, Merle was smirking and Taako was whistling loudly. Already the Director could feel the headache building behind her forehead. 

“Are you boys ready for this?” she spoke into her microphone.

“Hell yes”, Magnus agreed enthusiastically.

“If any of you dudes go digging around my head, I’m kicking both of you out, capiche?” said Taako, seemingly not concerned with the prospect of fighting a giant monster again after months of inactive duty.

“Don’t you dare kick them out Taako, that’s just part of the drift”, the Director sighed, Angus next to her looking worried.

“Whatever you say boss”, Taako shrugged and then unsubtly kicked at the back of Merle’s thighs, “Oi, rookie, you better not fuck this up for us”.

Merle recuperated right back with a kick of his own, “Don’t worry, I’m sure I can keep up”. Magnus just laughed.

They stood there, an unlikely bunch of fellows. Magnus on the left, Merle in the middle, Taako on the right. It honestly shouldn’t work – there is nothing about this combination of people that says “stable”, nothing that could indicate a strong drift, a mutual trust and respect. And yet.

The first time they all drift together isn’t remarkable, except it is. They were in the middle of the biggest crisis they have seen so far in the war against the kaiju, attempting to do something that has never been done before, something that science does not know how to handle. They were three people who are as different as one can get, each one with his own history and past, all of them damaged to a degree that the drift shouldn’t have worked, shouldn’t have stabilized.

But it isn’t remarkable, not for them. Because as the display on the Director’s screen showed a compatibility of 97%, she already knew she was going to have to talk to Lucas about permanently altering the jaeger for the presence of three pilots.

**Author's Note:**

> follow me on twitter and or tumblr @merthurlin if you want to cry more about tres horny boys, im always around!


End file.
